Is the SHO high Maintenance or not?

[Denny]

Remember if you play you pay!

**** yeah it's a $)(#*# high maitenance vehicle, ESPECIALLY when it's gone through it's life not being well maintained. Oh well, I'm still addicted and nutz about it as ever!! C'mon 3.2! Then say hello to a tranny repair! shrug

 

[TVSHO]

I would vote for high maintenance. I've had mine for 6 years and over 100K miles and have done all the preventive maintenance. I love the car but the things that break on it (not Yamaha related) really **** me off and I don't race it. I never realized how nice the 5yr/75K mile warranty was until it ended! I'm sorry but a car under 100K miles should not need: 2 sets of front rotors, 2 fuel pumps, 2 sets of 02 sensors, 1 master cylinder, 1 brake booster, 2 cps, 1 new cd player, new jbl amp, 1 new A/C system, new starter, several new front susp pieces, etc, etc all on top of the $1700 60K service I had done! Plus, I've been stranded 3 times in 2 years! Sure an Accord or Camry isn't as fun to drive but I can say from 20 years of driving and personal experiece that they are much more reliable with a lower cost of ownership. My $.02

Tom
'94 ATX

 

[autobahnsho]

I'd say that the SHO is just as expensive as any other Ford..

Sorry TVSHO, sounds like the two SLO's I owned before buying my SHO almost a year ago.

My SHO was maintained fairly well- the first owner had it for 10 years, the second only about a year, in which he replaced a lot of coolant parts, hoses, and wires to get problems fixed. He decided to sell it because he had spent so much money and didn't want to spend more.

Lucky 4 me, since I haven't had anything besides the cd changer rf modulator break.

It's too bad it's so hard to drive the car slow and gentle..

 

[saucy]

The SHO is very high maintenance. 60k, $159 plug wires. To add to the high maintenance is the fact that the car is a ***** to work on. To the guys who say that it is no different than any other 13 year old performance car, go talk to someone who has oned a 5 liter Mustang. I owned one for 4 years with 100k on it and never did anything to it other than change oil, and beat the living day lights out of it everyday. I've never heard of doing the type of maintenace involved with an SHO. And like a lot of guys on here say, if you beat on an SHO you WILL be working on it.

 

[projectSHO89]

$158 plug wires? Try $84 $200 water pumps? Try $45.

Man, you guys really need to pay attention to some of the posts around here and do some serious price shopping......

Sure some of the parts are getting harder to come by. Fortunately there are a few guys who sell used parts at reasonable prices.

Would I have my 89 with over 200K miles on it as my only car? Heck no! I keep a nice spare and drive the heck (as in miles) out of this one. How much more is a 13 year old car with 200K+ on it going to depreciate if I put 20K a year on it? Heh! I only gave $200 to drive it home.

Steve

 

[DAMNMYSHOTOHELL]

It is a money pit, you just have to ask yourself if this is EXACTLY the car you want. If the answer is yes, you wont feel bad about all the $$ it takes to keep the car running. I sold mine becuase the answer was no, but I'd say weather or not you enjoy your SHO depends entirely on your own personal situation.

 

[saucy]

Just making a point that parts are more expensive for these cars and usually not available at the parts store. God knows that everytime you work on one thing you end up finding 3 others that need to be fixed too. The last thing you want to do is have your car sitting for 2 weeks while you wait for parts over the internet. Hey we all obviuosly enjoy the **** out of our cars, I got mine running last week and my wife claims that I'm living in it now, I'm pretty ****** that I'm driving it in this god forsaken snow. As much as I like the car right now, it's only a couple of major repairs away from being a complete financial nightmare. I figure I've got almost $3000 into it right now and by the time I do the 60k and brakes I'm going to be borderline bust.

 

[RStalveyARFF]

I'll put my vote on the no side of high maintenance. It is exactly like any other car, keep it up and it'll run fine. I pulled my old motor out @ 141655 just to throw in a 3.2, no problems with the old motor, and was still running 202 @ the wheels. The new motor sees 221/216 @ the wheels, over 312 crank hp when the nitrous is fed (more when I find out why the **** I'm not getting my full 120 shot) and I have absolutely no problems. Change the oil @ every 3000, do all neccessary scheduled maintenance (tip: buy parts here and there if you know you're going to need a 60k, less of a shell shock) and the car will run trouble free. All in all, driveline parts are not expensive, aside from the valve cover seals, plug wires, and plugs. How can you complain about a $219 stock clutch kit? We also have FPN and FPO working for us. I must say this car is a helluva lot cheaper to maintain than my Saab 900 I had. $200 a caliper, and it went through 13 of em.... 2 PS racks, 1 transmission (junked it after that), 5 or 6 full exhaust systems, about 10 balljoints, 2 sets of shocks, 1 head gasket (only 1 head), 2 radios, a fuel pump, AC compressor, alternator, 3 waterpumps, 5 oil pump seals, a set of fuel injectors, and 1 computer. That was over a 206,000 mile span. My SHO has 146,000 miles now and is on mostly original items, with most things being replaced to upgrade, not because they broke.

<small>[ December 03, 2002, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: SHO91MTX ]</small>

 

[89SHOduff]

I'm borderline... the only real problems I have is with the suspension. I've had to replace alot of stuff in that area. My car does have 185,000 on it though. I bought my car with 20k on a new engine and so far the only thing I've had to replace (in 3+ yrs.) on the engine is a camshaft or cranckshaft sensor(cant remember). That part was the most aggrevating though but other than that,love the SHO and wouldn't buy anything else. thumbs_u

 

[SHOspazz92]

The question you ask reall depends on the driver, when we had our 2 previous SHO's , starting with the 91, wich we bought in 94, it was very relibale, i belive the clutch went out once and there was a hoses and what not that had to be replaced, oh ya, and the heater went out. The 90 we bought in 96 was a ok car, it was more of a thrasher then anything, blew the motor on it the first 3 months we had it, but that was because it was a salvaged car, and it had the origonal salvaged motor, we put a 95 SHO MTX motor in there soon after (traded a POS boat we had for it, the motor only had 15k on it), the only problems with that motor was freaking vapor lock, but other then that, it was a fun car, very strong for a salvaged car, Has AWSOME brakes, and was one **** of a sleeper. The Broken 92 we currently have is broke because of us, we ran it REALLY REALLY hard for about a Hour on the angeles crest highway (very fun road) and, this was with the car having 171k on it, no tune up since 115k, We ran the car, it ran so perfect tell we turned it off, turned it on 5 minutes later, and the rodbearing was spun, we should have let it coold down before turning the car off so qwick, out mistake, and no hard feeling towards the SHO....Keep the damn car, as exepesive as it can be, and it will last you a LONG LONG time (sorry for the book) thumbs_u

 

[Mr Anonymous]

SHOspazz92:
The question you ask really depends on the driver...

Agreed... A high-maintenance owner is going to have a high-maintenance car!

 

[Oz]

Speaking from personal experience, yes.

 

[shodazzl]

Yup ,HIGH maintenance $

 

[Rob94]

Well, it's a family sedan, NOT a race car. Drive like an ******* , and yes, you'll pay for it. Drive like a civilized human being, and no, it won't break the bank. Plain and simple. God people, it's a car, not a god.

 

[RStalveyARFF]

Rob, I thought it was the mesiah back on earth! DAMN YOU!!!!! Now I need to find another religion.

 

[TAM]

Well I just can't help but respond. Paid to much for my 93 sho with legitimate 72K miles - $4,000. So far I have had an alternator, thermostat, VSS, catalytic convertors from SShop, idler pulley, and new KYB struts installed. Also had a bunch of 60K stuff done (Power steering, brake, coolant, tranny flushes). Still got the big 60K stuff to do (belt, shims, etc) and I plan to put new Dunlop SP 5000's on it soon.

So what's the tab going to be? About 4K more! So for 8K I will have a 93 sho that should run pretty good. Milage is terrible but I drive in city (15 and change MPG). Is it worth it? Yeah, handles well, stops good, goes when I want it to, has a lot of luxery car features plus driver and passenger air bags and weighs 3200 lbs (problably moving fairly fast) if I get into an argument with a friggin' SUV!

 

[Mike Kopstain]

When people ask me what year my car is, I tell them it's a 2002, because everything is new.

<small>[ December 04, 2002, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Mikeys_Taurus ]</small>

 

[haydenm315]

blackcurrant:
High maintenance or not...it's the aggravating parts issues that get me....

Has anyone made a list of commonly failing partS that Ford has discontinued?

RH carrier bearing is the first to come to mind.

And $200 water pumps can add up to high maintenance COST!

There're two issues here... frequency of repair and cost.

mtx timing belt tensioner springs. Now there's a good one. Discontinued but located by a freak of nature and luck.
Manifold support brackets No Mas...
I think everything is being discontinued slowly but surely. It's ok because the unfortunate will wreck and donate it's parts for a good cause. I wonder if they still sell model T parts?
As far as high maintenance? I say yup. There's just so much cool stuff you can buy for hopups which you shouldn't even touch before going through the full 60k if it hasn't been done. It's a large list and costs I think 3000 or more at some places for the whole escapade. DIY shrug

<small>[ December 05, 2002, 12:49 AM: Message edited by: haydenm315 ]</small>

 

[bigjoe]

I have an 86 SVO which comes out only in the summer and is 9 years older than the SHO. Besides regular maintenance items I've been able to drive it hard with no ill effects

a. Your not really trying to say a SVO is low maintance are you??? they are famous for high maintance.
b. you only drive it in the summer...ya think that might have somthing to so with it not breaking as much???

and TVSHO...I sell many of those compoments you mentioned for other cars that are much newer.

BIGJOE

 

[Dave Ladely]

It depends on so many things like driving style, maintenance, etc.
But I would rate the SHO slightly more high maintenance than average cars. If you buy $150.00 plug wires instead of shopping around and getting superior Taylor wires for $75.00,pay list for gasket set, and so forth, then, yes, parts are kinda expensive. But I found parts online to be very reasonable. I bought Tokico shocks, which are high performance, for nearly stock price and Tokoco's have a lifetime warranty. And most of the parts are much better quality than run of the mill engines.
I use an Amsoil external filter setup with full flow and bypass filtering, installed it in front of the radiator on the driver's side, get the large filters, and use Mobile 1 synthetic oil - change oil and fileters once a year, save money and expect engine to last much longer.